TAILORED JACKET (2012)

“Every time I placed the garment on a surface, from working table to mannequin, I had to pre-screen every element of the contact surfaces with my hands to ensure that there were no wet patches that would threaten the integrity of my jacket.

The garment had its own life that I was protecting; the fact that I was ultimately going to encourage it to ‘die’ was not relevant until that time. But just as I was fashioning the garment, so to it was fashioning me.”

“Dissolving a tailored jacket, a garment that is associated with durability and longevity, was an act of speeding up the process of decomposition. If this garment was so easily susceptible to time and decay, it acted as a forewarning to the body worn underneath. If we alter the time lapse at which we look at a life cycle, so too would the body shrink, pucker and wrinkle before slowly melting away, revealing our bones. The jacket was a mirrored skin, reflecting our own mortality.”